News, Policy & Economics

The next wave of healthcare reform won’t be coming from the federal government, the insurance industry, the hospital systems, or medical academia. In fact, the driving forces already reshaping healthcare aren’t coming from within healthcare at all, but from the world’s biggest tech and finance companies on one side, and good old-fashioned grass-roots consumerism on the other.

Big Food companies have spent billions of dollars manipulating nutrition science and food policy for their own gain, especially to the detriment of poor, less educated consumers. And it’s affecting the nation’s health.

How do holistic and functional medicine practitioners feel about DSHEA and the peculiar language games it obliges supplement makers to play? Holistic Primary Care's 2019 practitioner survey offers some interesting insights.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s surprise resignation earlier this month sent shockwaves through the natural products industries. His departure at the end of March will leave two key aspects of dietary supplement regulation in limbo: the legality of CBD supplements, and the possibility of a major revision of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).

The year 2018 was a landmark in the history of hemp and cannabis in the US. It was the year the FDA approved the first natural cannabis-derived prescription drug, and Congress passed a Farm Bill that included provisions legalizing cultivation of, and interstate commerce in, low-THC hemp. But the laws and regulation around hemp and cannabis remain a confusing patchwork, and some states are taking regulatory actions that run counter to the new federal provisions.

Amid the current rage for all things cannabis, there is a lot of confusion about the terminology used to describe this plant and compounds extracted from it.

Part of that confusion arises from the Farm Bill of 2018, which changes some federal definitions. These changes have major implications for legal and regulatory policy. Here’s a guide to common cannabis-related terms and their current definitions.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released its long-anticipated plan to implement national disclosure requirements for genetically modified foods––and GMO labeling advocates say it keeps key information hidden from consumers.

There are a lot of anxious, needy people eager to cross the line that separates the US from Mexico. Go to the border towns of Southern California and Arizona, and you’ll see them--- US citizens heading south to Mexican clinics and farmacias, seeking lower cost surgeries and cheap meds.

Medical and pharmacy “tourism” to Mexico is a large and growing phenomenon, one that has received little attention amid the bitter political rancor over immigration policy and border control.

There are well over 10,000 chemical additives--flavorings, colorings, preservatives--that the federal government permits for use in food products sold in the US. While a few occasionally grab headlines--think monosodium glutamate, sodium nitrite, high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame--the vast majority garner very little public attention.

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